


Object Recognition

by kangeiko



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Firefly
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-28
Updated: 2008-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:44:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She's one of the old models, River can tell that much from sight alone.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Object Recognition

She's one of the old models, River can tell that much from sight alone. She has seen that face on dozens of other bodies, staring with a vague disinterest at the crowds of people below. The Eights are one of the seven models that survived the Exodus; one of the three that remained uncorrupted. The radiation upon arrival at the new system had been great, so great that not even their sturdy old-model bodies could withstand it. There were other bodies, of course, locked in generation ship after generation ship, with the patterns sealed in lead-lined boxes. One model to a ship; is it any wonder that only three survived the journey unharmed?

Model Six was the last of the Lost Four to succumb to radiation poisoning. River has been to the Museum of Earth That was; she has seen the holos. Model Six was tall and blonde and beautiful, like no model that River has seen since. She fell in love with her instantly, of course, as only a three-year-old child can do, and wept bitterly when Simon told her that the Sixes were all dead. "But they are so _beautiful_!" She wailed, and beat her fists against her bedspread in despair. "How can they be dead when they are so beautiful!"

"Maybe - maybe some survived," Simon said, helplessly. "Maybe there are a few still around, that -"

She crawled down to the foot of her bed to glare at him, eyes full of babyish venom. "Then they'd be old and wrinkly from age," she said. "They'd be horrible and ugly and _old_, and not like the holos."

"They might have had babies before they died," Simon argued. "You don't know. There are blonde people still around. There might be a Sixer great-great-great-grandbaby in your class at school."

She scowled. "Then they'd be new-model, wouldn't they? They wouldn't be Sixers."

Simon shut his mouth.

River wept for the loss of the Sixes for weeks on end. Curiously, the losses of the other models didn't bother her overly much. She'd seen newer models being retired, after all; it was a fact of life. And the other three of the Lost Four had all been men, and she wasn't too interested in them. Perversely, she wasn't that interested in the models that _did_ survive, either, even though there was a high probability that she was related to one of them. "That's a stupid thing to assume," she told Simon after he tried to point this out. "We're more likely to have come from one of the newer models, the clever ones."

"The old models were clever," Simon said, amused. "They saved us through the Exodus, didn't they? And set up the Alliance."

"The old models were generalists," River argued. She had a bowl of ice-cream that was bigger than her head, and was attempting to eat the bottom out from under it by digging a tunnel with her spoon. "No nuances, no specialist skills. They were soldiers, and so were good at soldier-things. There's no need for those skills anymore." She stuck the spoon in her mouth.

Simon dipped his fingers in his juice and flicked them at her by way of a reply.

Later - older and somewhat less certain - she can recognise the new person in her room. She's one of the old models; this, she can tell by sight alone.

The needles in her hurt, pain spiralling through her, distracting her. There were eight needles along each arm, some pumping things into her, some pumping things out, pulsing red threads spilling from her skin in rubber tubing. Blue-gloved men at either side checked her progress; she thinks that she might recognise the model. Post-settlement, she thinks. Maybe even post-proto-Alliance. They're do-ers, fixers, makers - the farmers when farmers were needed, the civil servants when they were required, the spare parts when machines broke down. There are only a few of the new models left, and they are all deep inside the Alliance, where their skills can do some good. The cross-gens - the mostly-human progeny of those surviving the Exodus - were so numerous now that making new models is no longer needed. You could simply let the population breed itself a new generation; you could let specific talents develop naturally.

"I'm very pleased with your progress, River," the newcomer, the old model, says. If River concentrates very hard, she can just about focus on the 'I' standing by the door. The 'I' wears the familiar white Alliance uniform, and the familiar Model Eight Alliance face. River knows that face. It is the face of the Alliance Press Secretary; of the Agriculture Minister; of the Academy Headmistress: Model Eights, one and all.

Model Eight Sharon Valerii CXXIX reached down and stroked River's forehead gently, pushing the sweat-soaked hair out of River's eyes. "I know you're going to make me proud."

*

fin


End file.
